Aformer New York financial regulator got away with jawboning banks and insurance companies into cutting off the National Rifle Association, after a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that "the First Amendment prohibits government officials from wielding their power selectively to punish or suppress speech," even indirectly, as Maria Vullo allegedly did.
Now an arsenal of gun-rights, conservative and libertarian groups, as well as business and financial law scholars, is asking SCOTUS to ratchet back its doctrine of qualified immunity, a legal shield invented out of whole cloth four decades ago, and let victims hold heavy-handed bureaucrats personally accountable without exception under federal statute.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted Vullo qualified immunity after SCOTUS reinstated the NRA's First Amendment lawsuit, finding that "a reasonable officer in Vullo’s position likely would have thought that her conduct … was permissible" despite the 1963 precedent Bantam Books, which SCOTUS simply reaffirmed in reinstating the lawsuit.
The NRA asked SCOTUS to review the case a second time, to resolve whether it was "clearly established" – unambiguously unconstitutional – when Superintendent of Financial Services Vullo acted, that the First Amendment prohibits coercing "a disfavored speaker’s service providers to punish or suppress disfavored speech on her behalf."
